United Press Invades India: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent, 1944-1952

United Press Invades India

Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent 1944-1952

John Hlavacek

© 2006, 2009 John M. Hlavacek. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Contents

FOREWORD

Chapter 1 NEW YORK (October to December 1944)

Chapter 2 CALCUTTA AND BOMBAY (January to August 1945)

Chapter 3 BOMBAY AFTER THE WAR ENDED (Fall of 1945)

Chapter 4 ACTING MANAGER FOR INDIA (October 1945 to March 1946)

Chapter 5 THE FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPH (March to July 1946)

Chapter 6 RIOTING IN CALCUTTA AND BOMBAY (July to August 1946)

Chapter 7 BOMBAY AFTER THE RIOTS (September to December 1946)

Chapter 8 THE SWAMI STORY (January to March 1947)

Chapter 9 MADRAS AND COLOMBO (April 1947)

Chapter 10 NEW DELHI (May to July 1947)

Chapter 11 HOME LEAVE AND AFTERWARD (August to December 1947)

Chapter 12 HYDERABAD (January to June 1948)

Chapter 13 BOMBAY MANAGER FOR INDIA (July to September 1948)

Chapter 14 MARIE’S VISIT TO INDIA (October 1948 to May 1949)

Chapter 15 AFGHANISTAN (November to December 1948)

Chapter 16 BOMBAY TO COLOMBO BY AUTOMOBILE (May to June 1949)

Chapter 17 KLM PLANE CRASH (July 1949)

Chapter 18 COLOMBO CONFERENCE (January 1950)

Chapter 19 A SPRING AND SUMMER OF TRAVELS (1950)

Chapter 20 GOLF

Chapter 21 BASEBALL

Chapter 22 NEPAL P.O.W. (November 1950)

Chapter 23 HOME LEAVE AROUND THE WORLD (July to November 1951)

Chapter 24 BACK TO WORK AFTER HOME LEAVE (December 1951 to January 1952)

Chapter 25 BOWLES IN KATHMANDU (February 1952)

Chapter 26 MRS. ROOSEVELT’S VISIT (1952)

Chapter 27 THE COURTSHIP OF PEGGE (December 1951 to October 1952)

FOREWORD

This book began as an ego trip.

Originally I was going to title it India B.P. (Before Pegge), because I had lived in India for seven years as a gay (what word can you substitute for gay now that the homosexual tribe has co-opted the word?) bachelor before we were married in October of 1952.

Another title, since discarded, was What If? If one of the many young women I dated had risked marrying a glamorous (ha ha), balding, underpaid newspaperman, where would I be now?

I arrived in India in February of 1945, expecting to go into China. Fate intervened. My new boss of United Press, Miles Peg Vaughn, asked me to delay my trip to China to help open a news bureau in the city of Bombay.

I was a very junior reporter for United Press, and I regularly sent letters home about my job and where I lived. Originally I thought that they would make good reading only for my children and grandchildren as to what Father/Grandfather did during the war.

As the years went by and I remained in India, I continued writing home, usually once a week—every Sunday or Monday. My mother saved all the letters, and I also kept copies of what I had written. They recorded my days of playing golf, baseball, swimming, etc., and of my travels within India and to the neighboring countries of Pakistan, Ceylon, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Burma—including days and weeks of partying—drinking, dancing, and eating. In re-reading them, I discovered I had created a (personal) history of the rise of the United Press news service in Southeast Asia.

During my seven years before Pegge, United Press grew from a hotel room in Bombay with an antennae on our balcony receiving news from London by Morse Code in 1945 to opening news bureaus in the Indian cities of Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta by 1952. During those years United Press also opened a news bureau in Karachi, Pakistan, and sold news to newspapers in Colombo, Ceylon, another British Colonial country that became independent after the war. In addition to serving newspapers, United Press also numbered All India Radio, Radio Pakistan, Radio Ceylon, and Radio Afghanistan among its clients.

And for me, who began as an assistant manager in the bureau in Bombay and went on to eventually become the General Manager for United Press with responsibility for the sale of news and news coverage in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Ceylon, and Burma, it was an exhilarating experience.

My letters also reflect a portion of the history of the Indian subcontinent. I was able to witness the transformation of British colonies into the free countries of India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Burma—along with the political, economic, and cultural changes brought about by the years after World War II. In my job I was able to travel extensively from Afghanistan to Ceylon and from Karachi to Rangoon. And on my home leaves I was able to visit Europe and the Far East after checking into the UP headquarters in New York. My father once remarked, shaking his head, They pay you to do that!

I was only one of a large group of hard-driving, underpaid reporters who slaved for United Press. Jim Michaels, a colleague from our time in India, and a person who has helped refresh my memory for this opus, sent me the following e-mail about the first time we met.

I recall you flew in looking for me. I was very green in those days, September of 1946. Had never worked on any newspaper except for a short stint on the Harvard Crimson. Peg Vaughn hired me in Bangkok in the early summer of 1945 on the recommendation of my boss in the OWI and because I was cheap labor and on the spot. My OWI boss was the late Teg Grondahl, a Swede from Red Wing, Minn. He had been a Unipresser in SF prewar and earlier a kid reporter in China in the mid-1930’s. Teg told Peg he had a smart eager kid, Jim Michaels, Mike as I was then generally known. Peg hired me on the spot, in Bangkok, after the Japanese surrender. I was thrilled. I was to be a real newspaperman and a genuine foreign correspondent, glamorous—ha ha—and no more Buffalo. When I took the job, Teg told me UP would be the best training I would ever get but added if I stayed more than three years as a UP wage slave he would never speak to me again. He warned me I would generally be over my head, outnumbered two or three to one by AP, and would either learn fast or sink.

When he took me on, Peg explained UP wanted to stockpile reporters in Asia against the outbreak of the expected civil war in China. At the same time he also hired three other guys who had served during the war as AFS (American Field Service) ambulance drivers—Bob Clurman and Hugh Crumpler and Stanley Rich, all cheap, all green, three of us from Harvard and one from Princeton. $35 a week—and watch those expenses.

To keep us busy in the meantime he sent me to Calcutta, Rich to Bangkok, Crumpler to Korea, and Clurman to India (later to Singapore). Some of us complained about getting by on that munificent stipend. Peg actually suggested we might be able to qualify for some kind of food stamps!

Now, a brief history: the United Press began (believe it or not) in 1907—almost 100 years ago. Before United Press, news sources were controlled by governments and foreign news agencies based in their respective countries. These news agencies established monopoly arrangements and divided up the news territories among the so-called Allied News Agencies. Examples: The French agency, Havas, was allotted South America and had an exclusive right among the Allied Agencies to sell news of all the world to the newspapers of that continent. Reuters, the British news agency, took the Far East and in China and Japan had the exclusive right to sell its news of the rest of the world.

In addition, these Allied Agencies, which included all the important European press associations and Rengo of Japan, exchanged news among themselves and covered their respective countries for each other. The news of France, Germany, or Italy, for example, originated with a French, German, or Italian news agency—a circumstance that did not lend itself to dispassionate, impartial news reporting.

The United Press never joined this alliance. The United Press was founded to oppose the news monopoly and immediately set out to demonstrate the worth of the contrary theory of operation—that is, that a news organization wholly independent of any other could cover the news of all the world with its own correspondents and profitably sell that news to all who wanted it, in every part of the world.

The United Press proceeded to invade the precincts of the Allied Agencies and their associates, selling a news product that was entirely its own and frankly boasted of its freedom from any taint or bias that government influence or subsidy might impose on others.

From the beginning the United Press was welcomed by the newspapers of other countries, both for its excellence and because it could guarantee freedom from any official viewpoint. In South America the United Press became the principal source of foreign news. In the Far East, until the outbreak of World War II, United Press clientele grew along with rapidly improving transmission facilities. On the continent of Europe, the United Press was serving a total of 151 newspapers when the war began in 1939.

Such was the situation in India when I arrived in 1945. Reuters had been the sole supplier of foreign news to Indian newspapers. Our United Press office—based in a hotel room—would provide Indian newspapers with their first access to an independent source of foreign news.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Although the bulk of information in this memoir came from my letters written more than 60 years ago, the book could not have been published without the help of many friends and colleagues.

Janet Tilden, my editor, an alumna of Carleton College, worked closely with me as she had done with my earlier books which were self-published by iUniverse: Diapers on a Dateline, Alias Pegge Parker, and Letters Home. Janet worked overtime to be sure I got this manuscript to the church (publisher) on time.

Max Desfor, a Pultizer-Prize-winning photographer, allowed me to publish his famous photo of Mahatma Gandhi with Jawaharlal Nehru and shared his memories of the times we spent together covering stories in India.

James Jim Michaels, a United Press colleague, granted permission to publish his award-winning stories on the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and shared his memories of the Hindu-Muslim disturbances that we covered together.

Marie (Hlavacek) Holbrooke, my sister, sent me copies of the letters she had written to family and friends during the seven months she spent with me in India.

Rex Daugherty, a neighbor, came to the rescue when I needed help with my computer and also helped print photos from old negatives.

Vern Greunke, a friend whom I interviewed in Vietnam, helped me arrange my letters and clippings for this and previous memoirs.

1

NEW YORK

✦

(October to December 1944)

We will be looking for you about midday of October 6th, 1944 and will find some place where you can stay until you find the sort of quarters you want. Perhaps you can arrange to bunk in with some of the fellows here after you have got acquainted.

This was the two-sentence letter I received from my new Far Eastern Manager, Miles Peg Vaughn, before reporting for duty at United Press headquarters in New York. There was a P.S. in Peg’s handwriting: Joe James Custer says he can put you up in his apartment near the office.

I was 26 and had been a United Press war correspondent in China for less than a year. In September 1944 I had returned to my parents’ home in LaGrange, Illinois, to recuperate from a serious bout of dysentery. My parents had not seen me since I had left for China in 1939 to teach English at the Carleton (College) in China middle school in North China. After two years of teaching, I had spent a year working for the International Relief Committee. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I worked for another year and a half with the American Military Attaché’s office in Chungking as a civilian code clerk. In February of 1944, the Far Eastern Manager of the United Press had been an overnight guest at the house I shared with five other Americans. In the morning, after a long night of dinner and drinking, I asked the Far Eastern Manager, Mr. Morris, what does it take to be a United Press correspondent? He asked, What have you done? My answer: I taught English, and I speak Chinese. You’re hired! he said. Thus, with absolutely no background in journalism, two weeks later I became a war correspondent for United Press in Chungking.

While I was still in LaGrange, I received the following note about my draft status dated September 18, 1944: Dear John, MWM [Miles Vaughn] asked me to get in touch with your draft board to ask for a deferment. I’ll need the following information for the Form 42A affidavit: local board, address, your order number, date joined up, birthday. Regards, Irving Peck.

My draft card was issued in LaGrange, Illinois on December 11, 1943. I was 1-A, subject to be called at any moment.

In October 1944, the United Press cable rewrite desk in New York was a horseshoe with the editor at the base and three rewrite editors on either side. The rewrite desk received cables and telegrams from all over the world. The editors would take the few sentences in the cable—words cost money—and develop those words into headline stories. At that time, New York City had seven daily newspapers, and each newspaper would put out several editions each evening. In rewriting, editors typed on books consisting of layers of thin yellow sheets of paper so there would be seven copies of the stories to be relayed on the teletype lines to newspapers and radio stations that subscribed to the United Press news service.

Because the newspapers were putting out several editions, the cable desk would send out new leads on the stories for each edition. After sending out the new leads, the regulars on the desk would repair to Sellman’s Bar across the street for a drink, then return and write another lead. There were times when the last leads of the night were rather blurry. Most of my fellow writers were also smokers, and there was usually a pall of smoke over the cable desk.

I was assigned a slot on the night cable rewrite desk when I reported for work at the United Press offices on the twelfth floor of the New York Daily News building at 42nd Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan.

Although I had managed to learn some basic rules during six months of traveling throughout China with the Chinese armies and the American Fourteenth Air Force, I was still a very junior cub reporter when I reported for duty that October. I had been fortunate to bunk in with a United Press reporter, Joe J. Custer, for the first few weeks. In a letter to family members in La Grange dated October 13, 1944, I wrote, I think I told you about going to the anniversary dinner at the Waldorf [a dinner commemorating the thirty-third anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China] but in case I didn’t, here goes again.

I was out shopping for a suit which I am now wearing when a call came to the store asking me if I wanted to go. So I went home, got on my best bib and tucker and went along with Miles Vaughn, the new Far Eastern manager, and Joe Jones, one of the Vice-Presidents of UP. I sat at the press table, met a few of my friends from Chungking and had a swell time. Before the end of the show (i.e., the speeches), I ducked out with a beautiful young lady who works for United China Relief and went to a CBS show which was being put on by United China Relief. Then, as I was in uniform, we could go to an officers’ club to dance, which we did. Had a swell time.

Still here on the cable desk and still very green. Looks as though I may be making some more speeches but nothing definite yet.

Still living in the apartment with the UP man but looking around for something for myself. However, they are scarcer than hen’s teeth, and there is not much hope yet.

Because I was a war correspondent just back from China, United Press sent me out to speak at meetings to promote the sales of war bonds. On these occasions United Press asked me to wear my war correspondent’s uniform with the CBI (China Burma India) patch. My first such speaking engagement to the Kiwanis Club of Salisbury, Maryland. In a letter dated October 16, 1944, I wrote:

Yesterday I called up the Jelineks (Robert and Aunt Mary), and they got me about noontime and took me to dinner. Then we went for a ride around New York and out to Rutherford for dinner. I am going to stay with them now for the time being until I can find something more definite. I didn’t get thrown out, but one of the other UP men is in town so as long as I had the bunk with the Jelineks, I said I could move out there and he could have mine. I will still leave some of my clothes here in the city and whenever I want will have a bed here to throw myself into, should there be late nights. Saturday night I was at a party at which there were a bunch of UP people.

We didn’t get home until about four in the morning. So I slept late on Sunday.

I talked with Miles Vaughn today coming back from the lunch, and according to him I won’t be back in Chungking until about next June, which gives me quite a time in the U.S. As long as I am going to be here that long, I have decided to get in some study and will probably go to school pretty soon. I figure on taking Russian at the moment, although by the time I am ready, I might decide on something different. The latest plan is that I am to study everything, including a little of the commercial side of UP. I am still green at the job but trying hard. The past two days have been very busy with the invasion of the Philippines, so that I get very little to do except the small stories. Next Tuesday I am going to Maryland to speak at a Kiwanis Club, so it looks like my tour of speechmaking begins once again. I am glad to get the practice.

I took the train to Maryland and checked into a hotel and spoke about my experiences in China. There was a small paragraph about my speaking engagement in the Salisbury Times, noting that I had been covering the Fourteenth Air Force in China. I still have the original letter, dated October 24th, and the clipping from the local newspaper announcing my appearance.

A few weeks later, on November 20th, I spoke to a meeting of the Equitable Life Assurance Society at their headquarters on Seventh Avenue. The announcement read that 1500 employees were expected to attend and that the purpose of the meeting was to stimulate employees to sell War Bonds to the passing crowd and also to buy War Bonds.

Having found a place to live with my relatives, my only worry was how to become a respected newsman. I was nervous as I introduced myself to the United Press vice presidents, Earl J. Johnson and Joseph L. Jones. The head of the United Press copy desk when I reported for duty was a white-haired Irishman, Charlie McCann. The first few days he assigned me to read official press releases and then rewrite them (boil them down). I would write my stories and take the copies up to Charlie for his approval, and then he would put them on the spike. (The spike was a file of all the stories written that day. Charlie, as the editor, was responsible for reading all of them.) The other regulars didn’t bother Charlie as they slapped their stories on the spike. There were times when some of the complicated stories overwhelmed me. I remember one occasion when tall, handsome Gene Gillette, the night news manager, had been watching me struggle. Gene walked over to my desk, took the book out of my typewriter, went back to his desk, and rewrote the story. That kind of help was standard at United Press, and it is the reason so many of today’s media stars got their start at United Press.

The rewrite desk was a busy place. Many of the rewrite men (they were all men at the time) were former sports reporters. The editors believed that sports writers were the best journalists to write about the war. They had the sports words—slash, slice, round-up, race, smash, etc.—all the adjectives and verbs to describe military operations.

I reported daily to the desk at noon, and after a week of rewriting official releases, Charlie said to me, John, you can just put your copy on the spike. I don’t need to see it. It was a relief and a signal that I had arrived. The twelfth floor of the News Building was all United Press. There was a desk for domestic news and a desk for radio station news (no television stations existed yet in 1944). It took me some time to figure out where everything was, and I was so naïve that I even asked one of the reporters one day, Which is the top desk in this room? His answer was, You’re on it.

After writing the official releases, I soon began editing stories from China, Burma, and India because I was familiar with the geography of the area. The majority of stories came from Europe where the Allied Armies were advancing across the continent toward Berlin, and also from the Far East where American naval units were fighting their way across the Pacific toward Japan.

One day a story came in from Europe written by Collie Small, a United Press reporter who later went on to write for magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post. It was a story about a young American soldier talking to a young dead German soldier. It was beautifully written. All I had to do was add commas, periods, and paragraphs, then put the story on the spike. As I was leaving that night I walked past Charlie on my way to the door, and he said, That was a great job you did on Collie Small’s story. I stopped and said, Hell, Charlie, I didn’t do anything to that story. That’s just the way it came in. As I walked away, I heard him say, Well, at least you had the good sense to leave it alone. That was the day I was confident I could stay on the desk.

As the months went by, Gene Gillette talked about my staying on in New York for another six months. I was willing to stay, but that December two United Press correspondents were lost in planes in Asia and the foreign department decided to send me back to China.

I wrote home that although I was living in New Jersey, I had found friends in New York who had a bed for me if I wanted to stay overnight. I also wrote that I had made a visit to the Wright Aeronautical factory at Paterson and Woodbridge, New Jersey. Frank Buckner, a friend I had known in Chungking, was the public relations man for the Wright Aircraft Company, which made the engines for the famous Flying Tiger fighter planes, the P-40s.

One night I went out with a group of friends from China to a party in Harlem. We first went to a Chinese dinner party. At the party were Jim and Josephine Burke. I had just arranged with Josephine to take over their apartment on Central Park West if Jim had to go into the army. (As it turned out, Jim joined the Office of War Information and I returned to the Far East, so I never did get the apartment. (After the war Jim and Josephine moved to India, and they were our friends in New Delhi. Jim worked for Time-Life.)

My mother and father came to visit one weekend and I was able to show them around New York City. I had met a delightful girl whom I took on dates in the city. But the die was cast, and the United Press made arrangements for me to return to China on a troop ship. My last day in New York was December 22, and on December 23 I flew home to spend Christmas with my parents.

2

CALCUTTA AND BOMBAY

✦

(January to August 1945)

The first week of January in 1945 I reported to the army base at Camp Anza in Riverside, California and sailed on January 10th aboard a troop ship.

As a war correspondent, I had the simulated rank of an officer so I was billeted in officers’ quarters aboard ship. I was in a stateroom with eleven other officers, and I lived in relative comfort for the 40-day transit to Calcutta, India. I wrote home that I had three meals a day, oranges or apples each morning, and ice cream every night. Also, there was an Army Post Exchange aboard where I was able to buy other amenities if I needed them. Three times a day we had fresh water for shaving and showers. At night it was stuffy because the portholes were closed as the ship was blacked out when traveling across the South Pacific. But we were allowed to go on deck, and I spent many a night sleeping on deck when the heat in the stateroom became unbearable.

In preparation for the journey, I bought a phonograph and the records to Oklahoma which was the most popular musical comedy playing on Broadway in 1944. I also bought Russian language records with the idea that I would have the time to study and could be speaking Russian by the time I reached India. However, I never did get around to playing the Russian language records because (I rationalized) the phonograph was in constant use playing Oklahoma and other records of the latest tunes which we found on board the ship. In fact, the record player finally wore out but then some of the ship’s company came to the rescue and fixed the machine in the ship’s machine shop. (I still have the Russian language records stashed away.)

For relaxation, I played a lot of poker, not for high stakes but to pass the time. I wrote home that we had variety shows and that I gave one lecture on China, recalling my experiences as a teacher of English. Also we had a number of bull sessions talking about everything and anything. I also played bridge, chess, and cribbage and a game called Battle Ship which, I wrote, We used to play in grammar school. (At this time I have no idea what the game was like.)

Our route was across the South Pacific, and the ship stopped only twice during the 40-day transit to take on fuel, fresh water, and supplies. One stop was off Hawaii, and the second was off the coast of Australia. At neither stop were the troops allowed ashore. We griped loudly while being confined to the ship for 48 hours as we anchored off Sydney. All we could do was dream about going ashore.

On February 22nd our ship arrived at the port of Calcutta, where I was happy to see a number of friends from my China days. It was especially good to see Llewellyn Evans, a Welshman with whom I had worked in Kweiyang with the International Red Cross. He had managed to escape from Hong Kong to Singapore before the Japanese assault. He had news that his brother, Owen Evans, who was in the hospital when the Japanese attacked, had been taken to a Japanese concentration camp.

In Calcutta, I attended the Washington’s Birthday party at the American Consulate. After only one night in the city, I flew to New Delhi to meet my new boss, Miles Peg Vaughn, the new Far Eastern Manager for the United Press. (My previous boss, John Morris, had committed suicide in the fall of 1944 by leaping from a window on the twelfth floor of the Daily News Building.)

New Delhi hotels were booked to capacity, but the United Press had managed to rent an apartment near Connaught Circus, the circular road in the center of the city. There I met a group of United Press correspondents who found a bed for me. Harrison Salisbury, the newly appointed foreign editor (and later a foreign correspondent for The New York Times) was in residence, as were Darrell Berrigan and Walter Logan, two veteran Far East correspondents. Both Berrigan and Logan were characters. On one wall was a mounted deer’s head, and Logan had wrapped a scarf around the eyes claiming that he hadn’t been able to sleep because the deer was looking at him.

I had expected to meet with Peg and then fly the Hump back into China. The Hump was an air route from India over the Himalayas that served as the lifeline for bringing supplies into China. However, United Press had other plans for me. Before the war, India had been an integral part of the British Empire (The Jewel in the Crown) and as a British Colony, the British had successfully kept out American businesses. Reuters, a British news agency, had a monopoly in serving Indian newspapers with foreign news. But when the United States began lend-lease to Britain and then entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill had opened the Indian newspaper market to American-owned news agencies—United Press first, and later the Associated Press.

United Press, which at that time was the most energetic and gung-ho of the American news agencies, had opened a news bureau in Bombay in January of 1945 to receive international news to sell to Indian newspapers. Peg Vaughn asked me to go to Bombay to help get the service started. I was to be there only for a few weeks and then return to China. Peg and I and an Indian bearer (valet) named Danji took the train from Delhi to Bombay, my first train ride since my trip to India in 1940. It was a 26-hour ride on the Frontier Mail, a train I was to take many times in the future. We had a first-class air-conditioned compartment, which made for a comfortable journey. On Indian trains, each railway car is separate; you cannot walk from one end of the train to the other while it is moving. To get to the dining car, you wait for the train to stop at a station, walk to the dining car, and dine while the train continues to the next stop. Then you are able to leave the dining car and return to your compartment. The Frontier Mail served both European and Indian food. We ordered from the European menu. (On later trips I always ordered from the Indian menu because I found the Indian food to be much more palatable than the European.) While Peg and I were in the dining car, Danji remained in the compartment to prepare our sleeping arrangements.

Arriving in Bombay, we took taxis to the Taj Mahal Hotel, which was then (and still is) one of the finest hotels of India. Although we had many suitcases, Danji was able to organize our departure through the milling crowds at the station. At the hotel, we met the United Press Manager for India, Harold Guard, an Englishman who had set up a small office in Green’s Hotel, which was adjacent to the Taj and owned by the same company.

Harold was my first boss in India, and during the months we spent together he became a great friend. He was a remarkable gentleman, a World War I veteran who had been a submariner in the Royal Navy. Harold walked with a slight limp, a wartime injury sustained while on a mission to mine the transit of the Bosphorus at Istanbul. Harold and another officer had swum from their submarine to place the charges.

Our United Press bureau was a fifth-floor room with a balcony. Harold had rigged up an antenna from the balcony for a wireless receiving station and hired two Indian radio operators to receive the news, which was sent from London by Morse Code. Our operators typed the news stories and we edited them. We then made copies on a Gestetner (a European copy machine) and sent the news to the Bombay newspapers by messengers on bicycles. For upcountry newspapers, we mailed the news bulletins to New Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi. (In 1945, India included all of what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh.)

Because there is a 12-hour time difference between Bombay and New York and a six-hour difference between Bombay and London, we produced an almost 24-hour service. We were serving the important English-language newspapers in Bombay, which were mostly morning editions. Also several Indian-language newspapers—in Gujarati and Marathi—had morning editions. But there were also afternoon newspapers in both English and Indian languages. Thus we were editing news stories early in the morning for the afternoon papers and late at night, sometimes as late as 3 a.m. for the morning papers. In addition, until the end of the war in August, all our outgoing stories had to be passed by censors—British and American. All Indian stories went to the British censors, and any stories about U.S. Army troops in India went to the American censors. Also, urgent cables from London went to the censors before they came to our office.

Harold Guard and I were responsible for editing the news from London as well as selling the United Press news service to Indian newspapers. In addition, we were responsible for reporting Indian news for UP’s worldwide service. To acquaint the editors with our service, we provided the news for a few weeks at no charge so they could see the value of having another foreign news service in addition to Reuters. After a few weeks, I had to write up the contracts and then make monthly calls to collect the money. In 1945, these monthly calls were my way to meet Indian newspaper editors and establish my contacts in India. At the time, it was not really a hard sell. The Indian newspapers, like most of India, were anti-British editorially and their editors welcomed an American. I had believed, when I joined United Press in China, that I would be mainly a reporter. In Bombay I became a salesman, although our office was also responsible for Indian news. (At the time, we had Indian stringers reporting in all the major cities.)

Harold had begun the service before I arrived, and most of the editors were well disposed to buy United Press. Many of the editors became good friends during my years in India. (In one of my letters home I noted that we had been putting out a trial service for Indian newspapers and that week we had signed three papers, which means we have a total of five that we are serving in Bombay. I noted that we had been cheered up immensely by the sales.)

During the first few weeks in Bombay we concentrated on getting the office running. We had little time to see the city, although one Sunday, Harold and I took a day off for a long taxi ride. We rode along Bombay’s Marine Drive and admired its white sandy beaches, drove into the suburbs to see its modern horse racing track, and went through the crowded market places. I wrote home that the ride cost 35 rupees, about eleven dollars, and the cost was going on our expense accounts.

On March 12th, I wrote home that the next day would be my 27th birthday. I wrote, Strange things sure happen to one. Here I am in Bombay when I expected to be in China, and who would have thought even two years ago that I would now be in India. Join the UP and see the world. One never knows. I may yet be in Singapore or the Philippines.

Later in the month I told my parents that I haven’t been to China yet, which ought to relieve your mind. (My mother was very worried that I would be transferred to China and be tempted to marry a Chinese girl.) Also, I added that because of the assignment to Bombay I was further from the war and probably safer in Bombay than I would have been in New York.

I also wrote that after conferring with Peg Vaughn, I had my salary raised to $65 per week and I hoped that if the office continued to prosper I would be in line for another raise. I had been drawing only $20 per week for my expenses, and the rest was sent to my bank account at home.

When our office routine had become somewhat settled, I went swimming for the first time. Because I was still accredited to the U.S. Army and wore my uniform, I was able to swim at private clubs that offered servicemen temporary memberships. I wrote that I had to buy swim trunks and was embarrassed when I dived in